WAILUKU -- Maui police and federal agents confiscated more than 130 pounds of high-quality processed marijuana and arrested a 37-year-old Kula woman this month in what police called Tuesday the largest processed marijuana seizure and investigation in Maui County history.
Acting on a tip that several suspicious pieces of freight were being sent from California to Maui through a private freight company, police obtained a warrant on Aug. 12 to search several boxes that had arrived on Maui from a freight company, according to a Maui Police Department news release. Inside the boxes, police found approximately 130 pounds of processed marijuana.
A day later, officers executed a search warrant on a private storage facility in Kahului, and that resulted in the confiscation of about 1.5 pounds of processed marijuana and drug paraphernalia, police said.
The street value of the marijuana is $400 an ounce, giving the seized marijuana a street value of about $841,600, police said.
The investigation led to the arrest of the Kula woman, whose identity was not released while charges against her were pending grand jury indictments. The woman, a citizen of South Africa, was arrested for the offenses of first-degree commercial promotion of marijuana in the first degree, promoting a detrimental drug and two counts of prohibited acts related to drug paraphernalia.
Because the woman was in the United States illegally, the U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations took her into custody. She was taken to Oahu where she was being held for federal proceedings, police said.
The freight company involved in shipping the marijuana was not identified by police.
